Playing with bubbles at the CDM

The Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose has a lot of neat exhibits but one that Lauren always wants to go to is the bubble exhibit. She even knows where it is in the museum and will ask to go downstairs to see the bubbles.

Trying to make a big bubble in her hand.

Here she is catching a bubble that drops from the machine at the top of the exhibit.

The CDM person (Mary) at the exhibit was kind enough to make some big bubbles for Lauren to catch. We caught the place at a good time as Lauren was the only one in the exhibit so she got to catch many of these bubbles. Thanks Mary!

The explosion of the bubble when Lauren "catches" them.

Lauren loves this exhibit even though she gets soap in her eyes at times which results in them getting red and puffy.

We're goin on an egg hunt

We weren't in the Bay Area for Easter but Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to have an Easter egg hunt for Lauren in the back yard. The eggs were filled with yummy things that Lauren likes such as grapes and goldfish! Here are some of the pics. Occasionally she will ask to have another egg hunt even though it isn't Easter any more.

Setting out to find some eggs.

Oh there's one!

And another one...

Auntie June helping Lauren open her eggs.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for hosting Lauren's private Easter egg hunt.

the rest of the week....

The rest of the week culminated with more relaxation with friends and family.

On Sunday we helped celebrate Tai Tai's 89th birthday. The weather was beautiful and it was great to be outside and playing with Moi, Kai and the rest of the family.

A Tina made a beautiful cake for Tai Tai!!



Lauren sat and ate lunch with grandma. Lots of yummy food to eat, including some layered jello, and some potato chips to cap it off.



Later that weekend, we went on a bike ride with Vincy and Micah over in San Mateo on the Baytrail. Lauren got to sit in the iBert as we rode around. I think we did a total of about 12 miles.

We started at Vincy and Micah's place, just off of 3rd st, and rode around and then stopped off at 99 Ranch on Foster City Blvd for lunch.


After fun at lunch, (and a nice package for Vincy and Bethy) we rode back, and someone was a little sleepy. Sorry, not a great picture, but I didn't have as much time to snap the shot as I would have liked to, as along with the photography skills being tested, my stamina and ability to ride far enough ahead to prepare was a bit short as well.



She woke up when we got back to Vincy and Micah's, and we decided to go get some yogurt.... which obviously served as a recharge, as she then proceeded to "ready, set.... go" up and down the sidewalk for the next 10-15 minutes with Vincy and Micah.



Overall it was a fun weekend at the beach, with family, and friends. Hopefully we'll be riding bikes more with her in the future. Maybe Bethy and I can get back into shape and give her some better exposure to the outside as well!!

A mini trip with Daddy

Daddy had some time off last week from work so we took a little trip with Lauren to the San Luis Obispo area specifically Avila Beach. We missed the big heat wave up here and settled for upper 60s and low 70s weather.
If anyone has been in the area then you would know that the Avila Beach area is more sheltered than Pismo or Shell Beach so the morning fog would burn off around noon and it would be late before the evening fog came in. We went for a couple of bike rides with Lauren in the morning when it was still overcast. Lauren loved looking at the people, joggers, and dogs along the trail. She would talk non-stop during these bike rides though.

Here Lauren is on the first day searching for rocks. We drove down during her nap so the afternoon we spend digging in the sand and walking along the water on the beach. The water was cold but that did not deter Lauren from wanting to play in it.

One of the funny things she would do on this trip is hide behind the curtains and for some reason she really thinks we cannot see her... There were many hours of fun with her hiding somewhere in the room.

In the morning she would get to eat some yogurt as she watched some Wow Wow Wubbzy and her dad would get her a muffin from the breakfast bar. She would never eat the whole thing she would only eat a little off the top. I guess it is so she could rest her chin somewhere.

One of the days we went over to Pismo Beach before dinner. Since I didn't have my point and shoot this is from my phone. The only thing to point out here is that you can see that the fog rolled in.

On the last day Lauren was playing with a bucket of water in the sand. This is what happens when you pour the bucket of water around your two tiny little feet.

It was a bit cooler on this last day hence the sweatshirt she is wearing. She still liked playing in the sand. One thing to note was that she didn't want to be buried in the sand anymore. Daddy would dig a big whole and she would slip into it sometimes but she didn't want any sand in with her.

Relaxin on the beach

This pic is from a few weeks back when we had our first heat wave. We decided to head out to Half Moon Bay to get out of the heat. On the way to the beach she fell asleep in her car seat so I took her out and carried her out to the sand. Since she was still sleeping I decided to just lay in the sand and talk to Auntie Ramona.

She woke up later and had lots of fun playing in the sand.

We got to bury her in the sand as we played around her.

Random pics May 5, 2009

We went to play at a park in Mountain View so I wanted to post some pics but I haven't downloaded all of them yet. Here are a couple off of my phone.

Here she is giving me her fake smile...

This one is her serious look.

We went to Pizza Antiqua to have lunch with Auntie Dana. Ffor the first time I noticed how Lauren is coloring these days. She actually made an effort to try and color the different objects in this picture. She even picked the right colors for two of them. She really does amaze me sometimes.




This pic is from a few days ago when she was playing. She saw this doll and was trying to "put it to sleep" I should have filmed her saying "Shhh baby seeping".

Always moving

The cell phones these days have camera phones which I like since I don't always have my camera in hand. The problem with these cameras is the shutter speed is so slow my moving daughter is always blurry. Eric would say its my unsteady hands :)!

Here she is strolling around the living room calling someone on her phone.

This is a funny pic since she is "cheesing" for the camera which consists of squinting. I showed her the picture and told her that isn't smiling. She thought the picture was funny.

Oh she is finally still enough to take a pic. If you notice I am holding her leg down so she doesn't squirm away.

I have a bunch of other pics of her in this dress but they are all blurry. :) I think this dress was given to us by Auntie Di but I am not sure, please correct me if I didn't get it right. It is a cute little dress that is reversible. She has pants on because the dress is a little small lengthwise (12 month size) but I thought it was still wearable.

The shell game and "dunk it"

Lauren doesn't get to see much of Uncle Kenny but she definitely remembers him and always enjoys playing with him. Uncle Kenny was in town last week and Lauren got to spend some time with him. In additions to the videos below, Uncle Kenny spent time trying to teach Lauren to say "Go Gators!" instead of "Go Bears!" Lauren kept saying "Go alli-Gators!" it was pretty amusing.

Uncle Kenny was trying to teach Lauren the shell game, you know the one where you guess where the ball is under the shell. Auntie Joy tried to teach this game to Lauren a few weeks ago by putting an object underneath the plastic egg shell halves. Unfortunately the egg halves were all a different color so if she watched Auntie Joy put it under a certain color there wasn't any point to the game. So she told Lauren to not look. When Uncle Kenny tried to teach her this game she kept saying "Don't Look, don't look." But Kenny wanted her to look. Well this game is pretty hard to do for someone Lauren's age who doesn't have enough of an attention span, but Lauren still had fun playing with Uncle Kenny.

I love how Lauren re-covers it at the end and then proceeds to uncover it and pretend like she found it!




This is what happens when it is passed Lauren's bedtime. She thinks everything is funny. She thought the phrase "dunk it" was hilarious.

Thanks again Uncle Kenny for spending time with us

Reading with Lauren

We read a lot with Lauren but she usually gets a couple of books read to her by Daddy before bedtime. Some of her favorites are Goodnight Gorilla, Jamberry, Goodnight Moon, One Fish, Two Fish, Dr. Seuss's ABC book and Sheep in a Jeep. As with all kids when you read these books over and over they start to know them by heart. She can say pieces of each of the books we read to her. Below is Lauren helping her Daddy tell the story Sheep in a Jeep. We chose to record this book for the blog since it is one of her shorter books.




Since she is still little I know the enunciation isn't perfect so if you cannot make out the words she is saying see below the words quoted in color.

"Beep! Beep!"
Sheep in a jeep on a hill thats "steep."
Uh-oh! The jeep won't go.
Sheep leap to push the "jeep."
Sheep shove. Sheep "grunt."
Sheep don't thing to look "up front."
Jeep goes "splash!"
Jeep goes "thud!"
Jeep goes deep in "gooey mud."
Sheep "tug."
Sheep "shrug."
Sheep yelp. Sheep "get help."
Jeep comes out sheep "shout."
Sheep cheer. Oh, dear!
The driver sheep forgets to "steer."
Jeep in a "heap."
Sheep "weep."
Sheep sweep the "heap."
Jeep for sale --- "cheap."